Freedom Cycle

Tuesday, 6 February 2018

Every cyclist in the land will now surely have heard
of the plan to ban cyclists from using a 15-mile stretch of the A63
dual-carriageway at Hull, which forms part of the V718 time trial course, one
of the fastest courses in the land.

Tour de France winner Sir
Bradley Wiggins recorded a 17-58 “10” here in May 2015.

Cycling UK, the national cycling charity, have
called the proposed ban “ludicrous” and demanded it be scrapped. They threaten
legal action. Cycling Time Trials (CTT) is also strongly opposed, as you might
imagine.

This is Highways England’s idea - the company
appointed by the government to manage the trunk and A-road network and, would
you believe, promote cycling!

They want a Traffic Restriction Order (TR0) banning
cyclists from using the section
of the A63 Trunk Road between North Cave Interchange and Daltry Street
Interchange.

They cite six accidents – including one fatal - to
cyclists in five years on this road as reason for their concern. Not all were
in CTT events.

Opponents of the ban say
this is not evidence based and the accident

rate to cyclists simply
do not merit such drastic action.

They point out there have been nearly 300 accidents
involving motor vehicles and yet no talk of banning the motor menace, or
slowing it down.

They use the generic term “cyclists”, not time
trialling specifically. But it seems likely that time trialling on this stretch
of road is the target.

According to a local radio source, the police have
long considered it unsafe to organise competitive events on this stretch of
road.

The irony is, of course, die hard testers benefit
from traffic flow and like racing on these roads. It has been a debatable point
for decades now, time trialling on busy fast dual-carriageways which have
become motorways in all but name. Well, it seems Highways England may force the
issue!

I felt uncomfortable time trialling on such big roads a long time ago,
when the A3 in Surrey had a makeover and was transformed into super-fast wide
“motorway” style dual carriageway way, with slip roads as wide as airport
runways!

Traffic was still relatively light in the event I
rode, but I felt at risk and never went there again. But that was my perception
of risk!

I felt happier on smaller country roads, but it has
been argued that smaller roads may be no safer!

What we do know for certain is that cycling is not
in itself dangerous; the danger comes from others. And that is not being
addressed.

However, the main concern here is not that time
trialling may be banned from a road even some local time triallists consider
too dangerous to race on, but the dangerous precedent such a ban will set for
other roads deemed “dangerous” for cyclists.

“Dangerous” for no other reason than for the past
70-80 years, the needs of cyclists have been neglected and designed out of the
road system.

It is further evidence of successive government’s
laisse faire approach to transport ever since car ownership began to grow back
in the early 20th century.

For the dream fostered then and reinforced by
marketing ever since is that drivers must be able to go where they like, when they
like, quickly and with the least inconvenience.

CLEAR
CYCLISTS OUT OF THE WAY!

Highways England’s twisted logic is that because
cyclists can’t keep up the 65mph flow of traffic they are therefore in “danger”.
So they’ll clear them out of the way.

Bollocks. Cyclists can’t keep up with traffic on the
rest of the 200,000-odd miles of the national road network either, which they
have every right to ride.

Expect other stretches of road to be banned to
cyclists, too - you can bet on it - if Highways England is allowed to get away
with this.

Meanwhile I know of no majorinitiative by the police to collarthe millions of thickheads illegally using
mobile phones while driving, many of them texting which means they aren’t even looking!

CTT
urge cyclists to object

Cycling Time Trials National Secretary Stewart
Smith is urging all cycling club members to lodge a complaint with Highways
England.But he advises don’t mention
time trialling! For fear, I suppose, of adding wood to the fire!

I wonder if he realises his desire to keep quiet
about time trialling harks back to the sport’s clandestine Victorian origins.

Back in the 19th century there was
widespread opposition to road racing on the highway which led to a ban on an
early form of massed start road racing. (Read Peter Whitfield’s absorbing
account in his book “Time, Speed and
Truth. A history of Time Trialling 1890 – 2010”.

This ban led to the formation of time trialling in
1895 – riders separated by minute intervals and not so noticeable! This was the
brain child of F.T. Bidlake, the “Father
of time trialling”.

Races were called “events” and held in secret on
roads identified only by a course number, just like today, and all to escape
the notice of the police!

In 2018, perhaps it’s time for CTT to cast off this
cloak of secrecy and brazen it out.

CYCLING UK PLAN LEGAL ACTION

Meanwhile, Cycling UK, the
national cycling charity, and point out that such a ban runs contrary to
Government and Highways England policies and agree it will set a dangerous
precedent which could lead to more restrictions.

“Highways England’s
approach to the A63 is entirely unreasonable and lacks both evidence and
analysis. It’s hardly surprising cyclists can’t keep up with motor vehicles on
an A-road, but it is ludicrous to use that as one of the reasons for banning
them.”

He adds that no
evidence was provided on the numbers of cyclists on the A63 which would allow
for an injury rate to be ascertained.

“Cycling UK would urge Highways England to
re-consider their plans and stop going against both their own and the
Government’s cycling policies.”

I asked Roger Geffen,
Policy Director at UK Cycling, could Highways

England legally
enforce this ban?

Geffen told me: “We
shall see. Our objection has been crafted in the hope that it will either
dissuade Highways England (HE) from adopting this TRO or, failing that, that it
will enable us to bring a legal challenge through the Cyclists’ Defence Fund,
if they were to proceed with it.

“I’d
prefer to dissuade HE from adopting this TRO to start with, so that we don’t
need to threaten legal action in the first place!”

Objections
to the proposed ban should be made in writing not later than Monday, February 19,
2018, and posted to:

Saturday, 13 January 2018

Interest in bike racing has surged in the UK these past 10
years thanks to the unprecedented success of British riders in the Olympics and
the Tour de France.

But has this come at a cost?According to well-known cycling author and publisher Peter Whitfield it
has. Below is his damning indictment of how professionalism is being allowed to
poison sport.

It struck a chord with me and I’m sure it will with others
but certainly not everyone, all dewy eyed and dazzled by the gleaming horde of
medals.

And it is right that we applaud the positives that have come
with this success. The last decade has seen the greatest most successful period
for cycling in the UK, now the top UK Olympic sport, not to mention the five
historic victories in the Tour de France (the first to Wiggins, four to
Froome).

This has spawned several indoor velodromes and closed road
racing circuits around the country, drawing huge crowds to the roadsides for
the men’s and women’s national tours.

British Cycling’s membership has gone through the roof, has soared
from around 16,000 to over 130,000. A
stream of talented youngsters (many of them rising up the ranks thanks the Dave
Rayner Fund) continue to make the grade internationally on the road, on track and
in cyclo-cross.

Many thousands of people have taken up riding challenge
rides and the sportives. A new cycling club in my town now has over 250
members.

And all the major classics and Grand Tours and a great many
other international stage races are shown on television.

It’s fantastic, right? Well, yes it is. I love this aspect
of it, how my once little known sport in the UK is has blossomed

But over the last two years the dream has turned sour.

My previous blog pondered the controversy surrounding Team Sky
whose strong arm tactics, impressive though they are in stifling the life out
of the racing until near the finish, is killing my interest in Le Tour.

Worse than that. Bradley Wiggins’s historic first Tour win for Britain
has become tainted by his legally approved use of an otherwise banned and powerful
steroid to treat his allergies. Its use was signed off by all the relevant
authorities so he hasn’t broken any rules. But morally it was wrong, for Sky
came into this sport proclaiming they will do it clean, they will be
transparent. But in the search for
marginal gains, they proved they are not transparent, as they moved into the
grey area with a doctor’s note to permit the use of a banned stimulant.

So they’ve only themselves to blame.

To compound matters, Sky’s current hero, Chris Froome,
winner of five Grand Tours, is under investigation after an “adverse analytical
finding” for the asthma drug Salbutamol – measuring twice the legal limit - taken
during last year’s Tour of Spain which he famously won.

That story is destined run and run for as long as Froome -
who has protested he did not exceed the legal dosage - takes to come with an
explanation. To make matters worse for
Froome, a few days ago Belgian star Tim Wellens revealed he had quit last year’s
Tour de France rather than use the very same medication to treat his breathing
difficulties. His reason?Because he is
against using inhalers. He was unhappy about depending upon asthma medication
which he was told would improve his breathing by between seven and eight per
cent, and he believes the practice is widespread in cycling. Not just in
cycling. Cross-country skiers in Norway sit in their team bus breathing in asthma
medication through face masks before competition!

Whitfield’s words should give us pause for thought.

NEW YEAR, OLD QUESTION: THE PRICE OF SUCCESS

The
cycling year was approaching its end and everyone was happily thinking about
the highlights of 2017 and wondering what 2018 holds, when a bombshell in the
form of another drug scandal engulfed us, and this time it's a British scandal
involving the biggest names in our sport. Once again we start to pick through
the intricate technical details of what happened, who’s guilty and who’s
innocent, who knew what and when, why it has taken three months for this to
become public, and all the while wondering when our sport will ever get out of
this labyrinth of technical jargon, half-truths and lies, and finally get to
the simple truth - if there is such a thing. Everyone is shocked as the great
British cycling renaissance seems to be crumbling from glory into deceit.

As I
pedal quietly on my own through the damp and leafy Oxfordshire lanes I find
myself looking for an answer, and suddenly there it is staring me in the face
in one word: professionalism. Look around at our top-level sport and you see a
world corrupted by money, drugs, technology, politics and media hype – in other
words, professionalism. Where money rules, values go out of the window. It's a
funny thing, but back in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, we all used to moan about
British cycling, asking what was wrong with it, why couldn't we win world
championships and Olympic medals, and the answer then seemed to be that it was
amateur: the riders were amateurs and the sport was run by amateurs. We didn’t
have the knowledge and we didn’t have the money, so we couldn't compete with
the French, the Italians, the Dutch, then the Eastern bloc, then later the
Australians the Americans, who were all investing money and expertise in the
sport that we just couldn't match.

Well
now things have turned round completely and we have gone into the professional
big-time, and what do we see? That we have a poisoned sport that is more akin
to show-business with its star system and its deceits, its faith that
everything can be planned and everything can be bought with cash. Modern
cycling is a business and a career, and this is what lies behind the whole Sky
strategy of control, control, control, that has ruined the racing itself.
Looking at it historically, I think it was the aftermath of Chris Boardman’s
brilliant success that was the great turning point. Peter Keen, Boardman’s
coach, produced his World Class Performance Plan in 1999 which secured
multi-million pound funding for British Cycling, which then set out on its
quest for international success, creating the so-called medal factory.
Unfortunately this produced in the public mind the formula: money + science +
meticulous planning = sporting glory. We have been living with the consequences
of this for fifteen years and more, and one of its worst side-effects is the
idea that only this top-level professional cycling, on road or track, is real
cycling, everything else is just playing about, it’s insignificant; in other
words we have seen the death of the old amateur ideals.

Success
was supposed to justify this process, this historic shift, but over the years
the hidden costs of success have become clearer, and they add up to the
disappearance of cycle-sport as we used to know it. I and many other people
have now reached the point of total disillusionment, and personally I no longer
care who wins the Tour de France, and I wouldn't mind if they shut it down and
we just forget all about it. I am scarcely more interested in who wins Olympic
track medals either, because these competitions have nothing to do with true
cycling in our own lives. What does it take before people finally lose faith in
the Tour de France and the over-hyped pro-cycling scene? Isn't there the least
whisper of a chance that we could learn from this mess and get back to the old
amateur days, when you took part in a sport, any sport not just cycling, for
its own sake, for the pleasure and the satisfaction and the sense of
achievement which it gave you, not for money and fame? Modern pro cycling is a
corporate business: it defines its aims, puts in the necessary investment to
realise those aims, and it demands results, and the only result that matters is
winning. Money is thrown at buying every conceivable technical aid and at
building racing teams and strategies that ensure results, no matter how tedious
and robotic that racing becomes. Sporting success has become a management task,
it’s been absorbed into the business model, the career model.

Compare
this with the days when the cyclist was a pure athlete, a loner who built his
own strength and skill for himself. Without science, without money, without
support and without fame, he rode for himself against ordinary people like
himself, with nothing to gain but his own satisfaction and the plaudits of
those like-minded people who shared his ideals and who knew what his
achievements meant. Sport was an enrichment of his life, not of his bank
balance or his image. Sport was supposed to be a way out of the world of money,
pressure, targets, tricks, secrets, and corporate plans, a way into a freer,
cleaner world of honesty, integrity, dedication and sportsmanship. Amateur bike
racing used to be a personal adventure, and it still can be. It does not have
to be tied up with money, team strategies, and media hype, which are the trappings
of business, especially show-business. We need more sport in our own lives, not
star-studded millionaire entertainers to worship. We admired the champions of
the past because we knew they were people like us, not remote superstars. Why
make everything bigger, richer and more complex, in the belief that it must
therefore be better? Have we forgotten that small is beautiful? Can’t we
understand that success alone is not everything, because it’s not just what we
do in life that is important, it’s how we do it? I would guess that Lance
Armstrong has now learned that lesson, and that he would give anything to have
won a single Tour de France honestly rather than seven dishonestly.

Sport
changes as the society around it changes, so what all this says about the
money-mad, technology-addicted, media-hyped society that we have created I’ll
leave you to figure out. How did we get into this mess? It seems we have a
unique talent for spoiling things, for poisoning things while we think we are
making them bigger and better. The same shadows have gathered over the Olympics
and all but ruined them; and then there is football and Formula One – are they
even sports now?I suppose all this is
not surprising really, coming from a species that has been busy for the last
hundred years poisoning the earth, poisoning the air, poisoning the oceans and
poisoning ourselves. In comparison with all that, poisoning a little bit of
sport should be child's play after all.

Peter Whitfield’s most
recent book is entitled: "Time, Speed and Truth: a
History of Time-Trialling".

Saturday, 23 December 2017

THEY came from
outer space, in their armada of expensive jaguars and huge posh shiny black
buses

It was Team Sky, a
British species racing clean, new kids on the block

They raised
hackles by daring to lay bare their victory aims for Le Tour

At Agincourt, Henry’s
long bow archers routed the French

At Le Tour, Team
Sky boss Brailsford fired his dreaded marginal gains to achieve same

Armed with their
science, their riders with alacrity overcame allergy,

To undo valour and

Control the
peloton by stifling the romance of the escape until the last

Then with
precisely timed attacks, carried off the prize

Championed first
by Wiggins and four times by Froome

Who for good
measure, repeated his feat in the Vuelta

And their crime?

To be smarter than
the rest

That was back then.Now what?

With thenews this month that Disney is buying up chunks of Murdoch's empire,
including Sky TV channels, there comes speculation about the future of
Team Sky.Are their days numbered?For no other reason than the new owners might have other uses
for the £31m annual budget of a team whose success is now tainted by
controversy.

As 2018 approaches
and the team prepares for new and exciting challenges, the current crisis surrounding their champion, five times
grand tour winner Chris Froome look to rumble on.

This concerns
Froome’s adverse analytical finding (AAF) from the 18th stage of the
Tour of Spain three months ago which has added to Team Sky’s woes.

What now? Will his first victory in the Tour of Spain be
taken away from him? It came only a few weeks after his fourth Tour de France
victory, a rare double setting him among the greats.

The test showed that
Froome had twice the permitted level of the asthma medication Salbutamol.

He insists he only
took the permitted dose.

According to David
Walsh in The Sunday Times (December 17) anti-doping and pharmacology experts he
has spoken to had “struggled to come up with any legitimate explanation for
Froome’s elevated Salbutamol level.”

It is now up to
Froome to explain how this occurred. Could the test have exaggerated the
result, due to him not being fully hydrated? Are there other mitigating
factors?His team think so.

Whatever, this is
more negative stuff heaped upon the Team Sky.

Personally, I don’t
think the Murdoch family will be too concerned, unless it starts to affect the
value of shares. They are well used to courting bother, seem to thrive on it.

They probably
subscribe to the saying that there is no such thing as bad publicity. “There is
only one thing worse than being talked about that is not being talked about.”

Disney may have a
different ethical stance.

I reckon - and I
won't be alone in thinking this - Team Sky has unwittingly brought all this bother
on themselves.

Murdoch has always
courted controversy in his business dealings. I mean his Fox News outfit is said to be
purely a political front for the Republican Party in the US.

He seems to want to
tinker with global affairs – he gets a kick out of it - and he makes big money
while about it.

So he’s smart and so
is Sky and it winds up his media rivals.Just look at their sports coverage. It knocks the BBC and ITV's coverage
into a cocked hat.

And Brailsford is
smart. They are made for each other, Brailsford and Sky.

They both say they
are going to do big things and they do them.

This ethos seems to run
through all levels of the company.

I’ve found Sky's
marketing people very quick on the uptake.

I’d once took a call
from a travel consultant telling me that South West Trains had heard of a Sky
family cycle ride bringing tens of thousands of people to west London.SW Trains wanted a slice of the action -
they would provide trains in and out of London. He asked who at Sky they should
speak to.

I rang the Sky
people organising the ride and informed them of SW Trains interest. They were
immediately interested. So I gave them the contact. Within 10 minutes they had
set the whole deal up, trains would be provided!

My telephone line at
home, together with my broadband and of course the television satellite channels
are all provided by Sky. I’d had Eurosport for years because I wanted the
cycling coverage. I switched the rest after getting pissed off by BT when we
lost our telephone and broadband. Not just us, all the houses in the road. They
didn’t answer calls and when they did it took them eight days before the
problem was fixed.

Sky has always been
quick to respond to any problem and to fix it.

I remember a TV aerial
contractor telling me that health and safety rules meant ladders were last
century and now we need to put up scaffolding so he could get to the chimney to
affix a satellite dish.

The scaffolding
would cost £1000!

Well, I didn’t have
a thousand quid.

I called Sky.
Perhaps they had their own scaffolding!

Scaffolding? No
need, they said.

Sky sent one man. He
was smartly kitted out in dark blue and black overalls and looked like a
climber about to tackle the North Face of the Eiger.He only had the west face of our two storey
cottage to scale.

He surveyed the roof
from the ground, then methodically went through a check list of all his gear,
his safety harnesses and hooks.He donned
a helmet and then climbed the ladder – secured to the wall - up to the roof,
hoisting a second, roof ladder, up with him. He laid that over the tiles to the
ridge by the chimney.

He came back for the
dish, strapped a small rucksack full of tools to his back and went back up, with
a line securing him to each ladder in turn, then finally to a harness around the
chimney, where he set about attaching the dish. There was no cost to me.

Here endeth an interesting aside into my experiences of the workings of Sky.

Back to the Team Sky
enigma.

The press response
to Team Sky’s issues has almost been as heavy as it was for Armstrong, the
sporting cheat of the century who was running a clever doping programme for all
of his seven Tour victories through to 2005.

All we know about
Sky is that they’ve slipped into the grey area by providing Wiggins with a TUE
(Theraputic Use Exemption) to allow him to take, legally, an otherwise banned steroid to treat his
allergies.And then there is the unresolved
jiffy bag saga. What was in the jiffy bag?

A harmless
medication, it was eventually claimed. But no record of this has been provided.Brailsford and Shane Sutton were less than
convincing in trying to explain this away. The laptop containing medical
records stolen?

Suspicion remains. But
there is no evidence, the trail has gone cold.There can be no case to answer.

The Wiggins business
was different. His TUE was for steroids to treat
his allergies. It was said this drug would be like taking a sledgehammer to
crack a nut. It was known to enhance performance. Wiggins really should have
been rested while taking this drug, say critics.

So that’s a stain
that won’t easily wash out. Now Froome, who suffers from asthma, like many
athletes apparently, is also in the dog house for his higher than legal dosage of asthma
puffs after a bad day on the Vuelta. He could face being banned and stripped of
his title.

It’s right the team be
pulled up over these issues, but do they really merit pages and pages of
reporting and speculation such as that which followed the Armstrong story - a
major fraud involving not just the Texan, but teammates, too?

You have to conclude
there wouldn’t have been half the fuss had Brailsford not continually boasted Sky
race clean. On the other hand, he felt he had to keep repeating himself because
cycling’s doping history was always being brought up by the media whose
insinuation was clear.

So at the first sign
of slippage, those TUEs for Wiggins, reporters jump on Team Sky.

The press, still
wounded from being taken in by Armstrong for years think they’ve been had and so
they have gone for Brailsford like wild dogs.

Brailsford is a
brilliant operator – but when this Tour novice brought his new team to the
world’s biggest stage race declaring he could win it, that upset many of the
Tour regulars. Who did he think he was?

Such confidence came across as being cocky.

The master of
marginal gains said he had no idea if the drug permitted Wiggins, courtesy of
the TUEs, enhanced his performance when he won that historic Tour de France in
2012.

And then along comes
Shane Sutton to muddy the waters by admitting on TV they moved into the grey
areas to seek any gain they could.

Too smart for their
own good.

Here’s another
gripe. The Team’s method in control racing shows their great strength, but it
is getting boring because they hold everything back until the last. In stage races it’s all become too clever and
clinical. It was great when Team Sky first took a grip with that great victory
by Wiggins in 2012.

But I’ve got fed up
watching this steam roller.

Froome, he’s a real
talent and he’s risen to become a grand tour master, a relentless presence
always there while his team set about weakening the rest …until the moment he
chooses is right to attack.Then the
entertainment begins, as he takes off in that spectacular if ungainly way of
his to put his rivals on the rack and take a few more seconds. Impressive. More
marginal gains.

It’s just that all
this action now only ever comes in the closing kilometres, the last 30 minutes
maybe, of a five-six hour stage.

We seldom get GC
racing until near the end, save for the usual breakaway of non-GC guys doing
their best. When they sometimes stay clear to the end I cheer. Otherwise, I
groan.

Thank God for
Contador in the Tour of Spain, where his many gallant, lone brave escapes forced
Sky to react. Froome won, but it was Contador’s
exploits which made the race.

For the best-ever
analogy of the Sky method – albeit a horrible one - I refer you to Richard
Abraham’s excellent piece in Procycling’s Review of 2017.

In his story about
the Froome effect, he describes how Sky, the richest ever team in pro cycling, buys
up the best talent, paying them enough to set aside personal ambition…. “and
take the job of riding grand tours by shoving a pillow on the face of any
opposition and holding it down until the struggling stops”.

Wednesday, 8 November 2017

British Cycling,
famous as the UK’s top Olympic sport this Millennium, is desperate to restore
its reputation tarnished by allegations of bullying and sexism which came to
light 18 months ago.

In just over a week’s
time, four months after springing that Extraordinary General Meeting on a
sleeping membership on the final weekend of the Tour de France(!), they will take another step towards redemption when a new board
of directors are elected at the agm at Crewe, Cheshire, on November 18.

But doubts remain
that this will truly be a clean break with the past. A reliable source tells me there
is the prospect that the “new” Board will remain under the control of a
majority of previous Board members who were obliged to step down after their failure to
manage the whole sorry episode which landed BC in the dog house in the first
place.

Delegates are
additionally concerned at the prospect that four new independent board members may
bring undue government influence to bear on British Cycling at a cost to grass
roots development as they establish policies to safeguard the welfare of elite
riders and staff.

For it was UK Sport
who demanded these changes.

It is now four
months since the controversial, hurriedly organised EGM in July sought National
Council’s approval to make changes to the constitution, under threat of losing
the £43 million Olympic funding if they did not bend the knee to their pay
masters.

British Cycling was
desperate to do as bid and after a lot of strife they got what they wanted and
the vote was won.

But the
orchestration of their campaign was breathless stuff. At the thought of
possibly losing the vote, at the last minute they roped in Olympic hero Chris
Hoy to make an emotive plea on their behalf.It was masterful trick and it seemed to work.

But there was good
news for the 10 England Regions when perhaps the most contentious issue of all was
settled and National Council retained its democratic right to hold the balance
of power. The EGM granted an amendment,
tabled by South East Region, to allow the England Regions a place on the new
board.

The fact that the England
Regions, comprising the largest membership of British Cycling, were not originally
granted that place speaks volumes.Scotland
and Wales were represented. Why not England?

There had been a
huge concern that without England having a place on the board, National
Council, the voice of the grass roots, would effectively be silenced.

British Cycling
without National Council would become like government without Parliament –
Theresa May’s preference when taking decisions over Brexit - authoritarian.

Notwithstanding that
the balance has been addressed, for some delegates British Cycling still needs
to demonstrate the sport can continue to prosper, across all disciplines, for
all members, and not just for the elite pursuing Olympic medals.

But in the light of
a 37-page annual report which I understand makes scant reference to regional
development, National Council may need more reassurance.

The new board is
intended to form the basis of the new-look management structure demanded of all
Olympic sports. They are all obliged to adopt UK Sport and Sport England’s new
Code of Governance on condition of continuing to receive Olympic funding.

This code is to
safeguard the health and welfare of athletes and staff, to nip in the bud any behavioural
problems. Ours is not the only sport with a problem. Swimming is another. In cycling’s case the new code has particular
relevance to the allegations in the 2012 King report which revealed sexism and bullying
allegations.

It made matters
worse that the full contents of that report were kept from the board for some
time and known only to two or three individuals at British Cycling, an issue
which still remains to be cleared up.

BC kept the whole
thing quiet until compromised by a whistle-blower, Olympian Jane Varnish some
18 months ago, over her questionable dismissal from the Olympic squad. It prompted other riders to come out in support, with their own
issues.

It led to the Parliamentary
Committee who looked into this affair to declare British Cycling unfit to
govern. And while that may have vindicated, quite rightly, all who have been
damaged by this affair, it was a hard blow to the morale of an organisation which
has truly taken the sport to new heights these past two decades.

How to get back on
track?

BC insist they have
since addressed all of these issues!

It is to the make
sure they do that UK Sport called for the changes in BC’s management structure
that have caused such unrest. Many felt the changes called for went too far,
too fast, and this is what drove Peter King and others, including former
president and double world champion Tony Doyle to take a stand at the EGM in July.

King says of course
all members want to see the Olympic success of British Cycling continue, but he
is worried at what he sees is a huge disconnect between BC and the members. He
is especially concerned that grass roots will be neglected as a consequence of
the direction UK Sport is insisting upon.

Forit was King- who coincidentally stepped in to rebuild the Federation in a big shake
up 20 years ago, setting cycling on its revolutionary medal winning course –who argued for South East Region’s amendment
to permit an England Region representative on the board.

Subsequently, King
has been nominated to become the England Regions board member and he hopes to
influence others on the board to address the issues dearest to his heart.

This whole affair had
witnessed heated exchanges both at the EGM and during the evening before, when
in a move which disturbed many, British Cycling executives led by President Bob
Howden, put delegates - already mandated by their Regions - under pressure to
vote for the proposals because if they didn’t, BC would losing £43m funding and
225 jobs.

No wonder that Doyle
says he took a dim view of an email BC sent to National Councillors recently,
warning against collusion… “To intentionally restrict
the number of votes for other candidates and to gain a clear advantage in the
voting process.”

The email pointed out
… “such collusion is contrary to the spirit and intent of an election process ….”

Doyle wondered at
the brass neck of this declaring that it is all very well to speak of“spirit and intent” when BC employed
questionable methods to promote their
agenda this year, both on the lead up to and on the eve of the EGM itself.

“Integrity and
honesty was being ignored by BC and they forced their decision on the
membership,” says Doyle.

Peter King for all his
concerns remains optimistic, saying he is relieved that National Council will
continue to hold management to account.

“Yes, the ‘cycling
family’ retains control,” he says. “Of all the amendments I proposed this
was the key one. Out of a total of 12 on the board we will now have three
directors nominated by the home countries and four elected by National
Council. There will be four independent appointed directors, one of whom
will be the Chair, and the 12th director will be the CEO.” (Julie
Harrington).

The nominees are:

President: Rob Howden (seeking
re-election, unopposed).

Chair: Jonathan Browning could be
re-appointed.

Four non-executive directors (from
the five nominated) –

Wendy Cull North West
Region.

Graham Elliott Eastern Region.

George Gilbert Eastern Region.

Dan Harris Central Region.

Richard Lodge West Midlands
Region.

Marion Lauder –
On-going appointment.

Alex Russell –
On-going appointment.

Additionally, the following three
nominations have been approved as non-executive directors:

Tuesday, 26 September 2017

That’s what it will take to save the
115th edition of Britain’s most famous track meeting from being
consigned to history.

The Good Friday Meet, host to World and
Olympic champions across the last century, “will not be held in 2018”, it was announced lastweek.

And yet promoter Graham Bristow,
organiser since 1984, tells me he still has an option on booking the velodrome
for Good Friday 2018.

If he can find a backer with £40,000 he
can still put the event on, but time is moving on.

Otherwise, the SCCU simply can’t
continue to incur the substantial losses of recent years.

It costs a few thousand to hire the track!

This is the longest running
international track meeting in the land, the Southern Counties Cycling Union
(SCCU) Good Friday meeting at London’s Lea Valley indoor track.

The event, established in 1903 and
until a few years ago held at the outdoor track at Herne Hill in South London,
has traditionally been funded by spectator receipts.

But the expense has outrun the income,
and Bristow and the SCCU have pockets only so deep.

How ironic that this event be forced to
close, with British cycling now the UK’s top Olympic sport. Britain has so many
Olympic and World champions – Tour de France champions – all of them punching
above their weight in the world’s biggest races.

It is especially ironic because at the
Good Friday meeting, once considered the pinnacle of the British track racing
calendar, National and local stars always got their chance alongside World and
Olympic champions.

In fact, the Good Friday was for years
ranked among the most important sporting events on the British calendar, always
getting space in the quality national newspapers. The Press Agency (PA) would
order copy from whoever was reporting the meeting for Cycling Weekly.

They include, from France, Daniel Morelon, Florian Rousseau,
Arnaud Tournant; from Germany, Michael Hubner, also Britain’s double hour
record breaker and World pursuit champion, Graeme Obree. Also Tony Doyle,
double Professional World pursuit champion, and Colin Sturgess, famed also for
taking the World pursuit crown.

Sean Yates and the King of British short-distance time
trialling, Alf Engers.

Although the
introduction of the indoor velodrome to Britain revolutionised
how riders train and prepare, and have been key to Britain’s success this new
Millennium,they came with a mixed blessing for outdoor track promoters like Bristow.

“The
Good Friday Meet suffered from the advent of 250m indoor velodromes, as the
vast open spaces of Herne Hill appeared to be irrelevant to the development of
the British Cycling squads who in earlier times would have attended.” explained
Bristow, adding.“Paradoxically there
was never any problem with contracting foreign based stars to appear.”

For many top riders, Good Friday’s
varied programme of events freed them from the pressure of conforming to the
more rigid programme of the World Cup events, tailored as they are around
Olympic qualifying races.

And so released, they would delight the
fans as they rose to the occasion in a medley of races, not just their
particular disciplines.

But there was another problem for
Bristow. Ironically, the transformation of Herne Hill from a rundown
dilapidated facility to a fresh new

locally based community hub also
created difficulties for the Meeting.

The ongoing works rendered much of the
site inaccessible to spectators and, with no end date in sight, the Meeting
moved to the Lee Valley Velodrome in 2014.

The hope was that the event would
return to its spiritual home.

But this was not be, Bristow told me.

“When the Herne Hill renovation was
completed the committee considered returning to Herne Hill, but sadly, although
it has new club house, the venue is no longer suitable for holding meetings
with more than a few hundred spectators.This, coupled with the ever present Easter weather uncertainties, means
that such a return to South London is not an option.”

But times change, says Bristow
wistfully. The huge rise in popularity of cycling has come with a twist. He
reckons that many of today’s new fans who snap up the tickets come to only to
see the Tour and Olympic celebrities and show little interest in the rest of
the racing programme.

“They watch Wiggins race then disappear
from the trackside.Same when Hoy (both now
retired) came on, they’d come back in to
watch him, then disappear again! They don’t appear to be interested in the
racing itself.”

The Good Friday Meet has always been a
big social occasion, where young and old acquaintances, fans and riders alike,
renew friendships at the opening track meeting of the year.

Spectators were not only drawn by the
promise of seeing both home and foreign internationals clash but also talented
rising stars, both foreign and home grown, take on the names.To thrill to the sound of big motors in the
motor paced event, always a big draw.

And it would all come to the boil in
the final event of the day, the Golden Wheel scratch race, a furiously paced
bunched race carrying an eye watering £1000 first prize.

Tony Doyle, one of the Stars at the Good Friday International over the
years, recalls some key moments for him.

“I first rode the Good Friday Track Meeting in 1975. In the 10 minute pursuit I finished in 3rd
place behind Alf Engers. I then rode & won the 10 minute Pursuit in 1978.

“In 1981 I rode a World Champions Revenge Match against Dutch
rider Herman Ponsteen. I regularly rode the meeting during the 1980's and the
meeting regularly featured many Pro Omniums with riders like Danny Clark and
Stan Tourne.

“In 1984 even Gary Wiggins (Bradley Wiggins’ father) rode and I remember clearly meeting a young
cheeky scoundrel, called Bradley. I regularly used to get preview
interviews with both Thames and BBC TV. I always got regular radio spots with
Capital Radio and BBC.”

When the world’s best came for the Centenary Meeting

I still have my press pass from the
biggest Herne Hill meeting of recent times, the SCCU’s Centenary Track Meeting
on the 18th April, 2003.

It’s one of my valued souvenirs.

The place was packed out. British
riders were beginning to make a big impact on the world scene.

This meeting boasted at least four
current World champions, three of them British.

They was Chris Hoy, the World kilo and
team sprint champion, his World team sprint champion teammate, Jamie Staff.

There was Bradley Wiggins, a Herne Hill
regular since he was eight years old, the 1997 junior world pursuit champion in
his first season with a first division team, riding for the French outfit,
Francaise Des Jeux. (A year later, Wiggo would stun us at the Athens Olympics,
begin his march to greatness).

And there was multi-world medallist
from Italy, stylish Roberto Chiappa, another Good Friday regular.

Plus a host of talent to take them on.
And it was a sunny, warm day, not a cloud in sight. A perfect day. Super racing.
And fun, too, especially the celebration dinner that evening where I recall
Wiggins the comic getting all tangled up in the coat hangers in the hotel lobby.